Grand Opening Recap

We had our grand opening Wednesday, December 5th and had a great time! Peter was very busy with his hosting duties and inviting people back behind the curtain to see the inner workings of our digital lab. The people who stopped by were also treated to a sneak peak of the soon to be released Hasselblad H5D camera demonstrated by Eric Peterson of Hasselblad. They also got to play with the new 24mm lens. And of course Peter unrolled many of his massive panoramas!

Check out the article in the Florida Sun Sentinel

Peter’s Pointer: Shooting for Sharpness

Photographers always ask themselves, “Is my image as sharp as it can be?” Well, this is one of the reasons we use Hasselblad cameras and lenses, which produce the sharpest and most detailed images technically possible. An image created using a Hasselblad digital camera with a large format sensor, 16 bit color depth, large pixel size and edited with Phocus software will be far superior in quality, detail and sharpness than any image created with a 35 mm format camera. I am not here to make any test comparisons, I will leave that to the other dime a dozen websites out there that analyze and compare. Owning a Professional photo lab, I print for the general public who mostly use 35 mm digital cameras and I can tell you the images do not even come close to those taken with Hasselblad. And no, the Nikon D800 with all it’s 36 megapixels still doesn’t hold a candle to the Hasselblad 40 mp H4D.

Tripod, tripod, tripod! Simply, do not leave home without it! Any tripod is better than no tripod. 

Now you have your camera nice and motionless on the tripod, perfect for capturing sharp images, or is it? You push down on the shutter release button (shaking your camera) the medium format size mirror pops up (creating vibration), the shutter snaps open, light hits the still shaking and vibrating sensor. Will it be sharp?

Here is a much better work flow. 

1. Mount your camera on a tripod.

2. Attach cable release to you camera (optional)

3. Preset your camera, menu, self timer, 3 second delay

4. Press mirror up button two times to activate mirror up and self timer

5. Press shutter release or cable release

You will be amazed comparing the difference in sharpness with and without self timer.

You can also set the self timer to stay on for each shot by pressing the menu button two times (custom functions) use front control wheel scroll to 21 (Interval & Self Timer), use rear control wheel and scroll to “Stay”, and Save.

If you find yourself in a shooting situation where using a tripod is not possible, I recommend setting up your Hasselblad with a maximum shutter delay of 200 ms (0.2 of a second). This will help eliminate vibrations caused by the camera’s mirror going into the lock up position by giving the camera an extra 0.2 of a second to stabilize. You will not even notice the delay!

Next months tip: Sharpening with Hasselblad Phocus software.

Announcing Monthly Newsletters

Starting this November we will be sending monthly newsletters to our fellow Hasselblad fans! Our goal is to not just keep you informed on all the latest and greatest in the world of Hasselblad, but to share some of our best camera and software tips, tricks and tidbits. Working with Hasselblad cameras, Phocus software and Photoshop on a daily basis in a variety of situations we are always discovering new ways to make the any photographer’s life easier and more enjoyable.